Coherentism: Problems

·      B¹ is a belief with observational status within Coherent System A.

 

·      According to Bonjour, “the observational status of a belief [B¹] can be recognized in a justified way from within the person’s system of beliefs, for only then could this status be used as a partial basis for the justification of such a belief, which then would allow such observational beliefs to appealed to for these various further purposes.” (p. 195)

 

·      B¹ is justified by belief B²—“But for a coherentist, the basis for such a recognition can only be the further belief, itself supposedly justified by coherence, that a given belief has this status.” (p. 195)

 

·      But another coherent system with differing beliefs could also have beliefs within it which justify beliefs with observational status.  Think of Coherent System B with B^1* which is justified by B^2*.

 

·      “As long as it only beliefs and the relations among them that can be appealed to for justification, the beliefs that a specific observation has occurred is all that matters, and whether such a belief was really caused in the right way becomes entirely irrelevant.” (p. 195)

 

·      Thus, one cannot, on coherentism, “distinguish genuine observational input from this counterfeit variety.” (p. 195) 

·      The coherentist wants to allow for observational inputs but there is no guarantee that the observational beliefs link up a mind-independent world.  Coherence of beliefs is only internal to the agent.  There is not direct access to the world through knowledge by acquaintance as one might have on a foundationalist understanding.

This appears, to me, to be a powerful critique.  The initial plausibility of coherentism being able to accommodate perceptual inputs which create beliefs is only rendered plausible if a foundationalist understanding is smuggled in.  Once the inner consistency of the coherentism view is made clear—only other beliefs within one noetic structure can serve to justify other beliefs—then the problems as outlined by Bonjour are manifest.

Critique of Laurence BonJour's Indirect Representational Realism

 * A paper written for an epistemology class for Biola's MA in philosophy.

AN INDIRECT DEFENSE OF DIRECT REALISM BY A DIRECT CHALLENGE

TO LAURENCE BONJOUR’S INDIRECT REPRESENTATIONAL REALISM

 

Direct realism is motivated by pre-philosophical intuitions that seem to orient one’s beliefs in an external world with which one is in direct contact.  However, direct realism has fallen on hard times.[1]  Since direct realism is seen as problematic, this sets up a search for other views which are more philosophically defensible.  Laurence BonJour’s version of indirect representational realism is one influential version of representationalism.  The following examination of BonJour’s views will proceed in two steps.  First, I will provide a brief expositional outline of Bonjour’s views regarding indirect realism.  These include, (i) realist intuitions that motivate a belief in an objective, external world, (ii) the denial of direct access to this objective, external world, and (iii) the belief that any such access to this objective, external world must be indirect access via mental representations.  The second step will consist in an examination of some deep internal problems with BonJour’s views.  This failure of indirect realism, coupled with the acknowledged realist intuitions, will motivate a renewed examination of direct realism.  Although a full-fledged defense of direct realism is impossible in this short paper, the argumentation contained here will serve to clear away the option offered by BonJour, thus opening up avenues for a reconsideration of direct realism.

BonJour’s Indirect Representational Realism

            BonJour is a realist in that he affirms a mind-independent external world which a subject can access.  He acknowledges these realist intuitions when he speaks of “our 

ingrained inclinations to describe the experiential content in physical-object terms.”[2]  Later he refers to “the approximately commonsensical idea that my sensory experiences are systematically caused by a realm of 3-dimensional objects”[3]  A recognition of these realist intuitions will be important when assessing BonJour’s views since it is precisely these realist inclinations that will work against BonJour’s overall position.

            Although BonJour affirms realism, he denies the traditional notion of a direct realism.  BonJour summarizes the representationalist view under two theses:

[F]irst, that what is perceived directly or immediately in sensory experience is not ‘external’ physical or material objects, but rather entities that are mental or subjective in character—sense data or sensa, according to the most standard versions of the view; and second, that the only available (reasonably cogent) reasons deriving from perception for thinking that perceptual beliefs about the physical world are true depend on inference from facts about these directly perceived mental or subjective entities, i.e., from facts about the character and contours of subjective sensory experience, to conclusions about physical or material objects.”[4]

 

Thus, according to BonJour’s first thesis, what the subject has access to are representations of the world in one’s conscious states; there is no direct access to the external world.  Bonjour does speak of “direct comparison or ‘confrontation’ between a conceptual description and the non-conceptual chunk of reality that it purports to describe,” but he is quick to add the important caveat: “Such a confrontation is only possible, to be sure, where the reality in question is itself a conscious state and where the description in question pertains to the conscious content of that very state.”[5]

            BonJour’s second thesis regarding the inference from sensory mental states to the conclusion of an external world is also important.  Here BonJour must argue against Berkeleyan idealism.  To engage the specter of idealism, BonJour makes a distinction between analog and digital explanations.  As used by BonJour, an analog explanation attempts to explain the features of the world “by appeal directly to the basic features of the objects in the hypothesized world.”[6]  On the other hand, a digital explanation of the experience one is having is appeals,

“to the combination of (i) something like a representation of a world, together with (ii) some agent or mechanism that produces experience in perceivers like us in a way that mimics the experience that we would have if the represented world were actual and we were located in it, even though neither of these things is in fact the case.”[7]

 

An analog explanation, in this context, would mean that the sensory experience in the subject is being produced by an objective, external world.  Whereas the digital explanation would appeal to some distorting force or figure (i.e., a Cartesian demon or Berkeley’s God directly causing the sensory experiences without a corresponding external world).

From this distinction, BonJour argues that the digital explanation is less simple and by a principle “something like Ockham’s Razor” he argues that the analog explanation is the better one.

Problems with BonJour’s Indirect Representational Realism 

            BonJour’s position is fraught with two key internal tensions: (1) the problem of non-conceptual awareness and (2) no justified contact with the external world.  To 

understand (1) it will be important to understand a key dilemma that must be overcome.  The dilemma has its roots with Wilfrid Sellars’ challenge regarding the “myth of the given” but its articulation can be found in BonJour himself.  BonJour writes:

[T]he givenist is caught in a fundamental dilemma: if his intuitions or immediate apprehensions are construed as cognitive, then they will be both capable of giving justification and in need of it themselves; if they are non-cognitive, then they do not need justification but are also apparently incapable of providing it.  This is at bottom why epistemological givenness is a myth.[8]

 

With BonJour’s turn to foundationalism, he must answer this challenge.  He seeks to overcome this dilemma in the following manner.  Acknowledging the second horn of the dilemma, BonJour affirms that a non-conceptual (“non-cognitive”) phenomenon cannot stand in a logical relation, but it can be construed in a descriptive relation.[9]  He then argues that the non-conceptual phenomena in question here is of a special nature.  BonJour’s key move is described in this manner:

But in the very special case we are concerned with, where the non-conceptual item being described is itself a conscious state, my suggestion is that one can be aware of its character via the constitutive or “built-in” awareness of content without the need for a further conceptual description and thereby be in a position to recognize that a belief about that state is correct without raising any further issue of justification.[10]

 

This “built-in awareness” is, in his words, a “non-apperceptive awareness”—a non-cognitive awareness.[11]  

            It is here that BonJour’s view runs into conceptual difficulty.  What exactly is a non-cognitive awareness of a non-cognitive sensory content?  As Steven Porter aptly notes,

It would seem that a non-conceptual grasp of the non-conceptual content of a non-conceptual state is a conceptually empty grasp of conceptually empty content of a conceptually empty state.  This awareness is supposed to be conceptually described, but it is far from clear what the subject is aware of in a non-conceptual awareness of a non-conceptual state which can serve as the object of description.[12]

 

In seeking to avoid the dilemma described above, BonJour has attempted to use a philosophical notion which appears epistemically vacuous.  As Porter argues, “non-conceptual awareness is a contradiction in terms.”[13]  It would appear that conceptualized perceptual awareness cannot so easily be dismissed.

            The second major problem for BonJour is that his view does not end up justifying belief in an external world.  It is important to remember that BonJour is motivated by realist intuitions; internal sensory states are indicative of an external world of three-dimensional objects.  The basic move here is that one can inferentially move from internal representational states to an objective external world.  BonJour dispenses with alternative hypotheses (e.g., Berkeleyan idealism) by his use of analog explanations versus digital explanations.  The analog explanation of an objective external world is preferred to the digital explanations since digital explanations are arbitrary and not as simple of explanations.  In his critical analysis of BonJour, Steven Porter acknowledges that it is true that there is no reason to prefer digital explanation over another digital explanation and that it is true that is arbitrary to prefer a digital explanation over an analog explanation.  

But Porter accurately assesses the situation when he notes the following:

But it does not follow from these two facts that we now possess a non-arbitrary reason to prefer the quasi-commonsensical hypothesis.  Unless there is something in sense experience that calls for the quasi-commonsensical hypothesis over the others, the same arbitrariness would equally attach itself to the quasi-commonsensical hypothesis.[14]

 

BonJour is seeking to argue that the reason to prefer the analogical explanation of an external world as the cause of one’s sensory states is that the phenomenology of one’s internal sensory states suggests an objective external world.  But it is precisely here that BonJour’s representationalism cuts one off from the external world.  What reason, given only one’s internal representational states, can there be given to prefer one explanation (analog) over another (digital)?  Steven Porter uses a helpful example to show the philosophical problem inherent in BonJour’s view.

Let us suppose that we are watching a film and an image resembling the Golden Gate Bridge appears on the screen.  Some philosophically attuned, inconsiderate movie whisperer poses the question as to whether the image is actual footage of the Golden Gate Bridge or whether it is a computer-generated image.  In other words, did the Golden Gate Bridge itself cause the image on the film (i.e., an analog explanation) or did a computer cause the image (i.e., a digital explanation)?  Of course, the image itself bears features which closely align with the features of the actual Golden Gate Bridge and which do not closely align with the features of a computer.  But this fact does not give us any reason to prefer the explanation that the image we are seeing was caused by filming the actual Golden Gate Bridge over and against the explanation that the image was caused by a computer which was used to digitally represent the bridge.  Indeed, there is nothing about the image of the Golden Gate Bridge which would lead us to prefer one explanation or the other if all that we have access to is the image and both explanations are in all other respects equal in their ability to account for the image.  If, of course, we had independent access to the actual Golden Gate Bridge, we could compare the actual features to the features of the image on the screen, and perhaps determine whether the image is an analog or digital production.  But if we only have access to the feature of the image, any preference for the analog or digital explanation based on those features alone would be arbitrary.[15]

 

According to BonJour’s representational indirect realism there is no possibility of having direct access to reality by which to compare the features of the actual world with the features of one’s internal sensory states.  All one has are mental representations of the external world and analog and digital explanations can equally account for this mental representation.  Even if BonJour attempts to argue that his analog explanation is superior to the digital explanation of Berkeley due to simplicity, this argument can be overcome by noting that according to Berkeleyan idealism only one causal entity is postulated “while BonJour must postulate a multitude of physical objects, their properties, and the causal powers and relations essential to the quasi-commonsensical view.”[16]  Thus, BonJour is left without any rational preference for his analogical explanation.  In the end, “BonJour’s position leaves us with justified beliefs about appearances but without justified beliefs about the external world.”[17]

BonJour’s Caveat and Rejoinder 

            Granting realist intuitions and recognizing the internal tensions inherent in BonJour’s view of indirect representational realism, one might think that a reconsideration of direct realism would be in order.  However, BonJour argues against such a move in the following manner:

No matter how difficult or even seemingly impossible the representationalist’s attempted inference from subjective experience to the material world may turn out to be, this is not enough by itself to show that direct realism provides a better epistemological alternative or indeed that it provides one at all.[18]

 

BonJour argues that unless the direct realist can give a positive account of how perceptual beliefs are justified then the door is open for the representationalist view “as the only apparent contender in the field (phenomenalism aside), however allegedly problematic it may be.”[19]

            BonJour’s thought can be captured in the following manner:

(1) Realist intuitions motivate a belief in an objective external world composed of three-dimensional objects.

 

(2) Direct realism cannot provide a positive account for justified perceptual beliefs.

(3) No matter the difficulties, indirect representational realism is the only apparent contender in line with the realist intuitions of (1) above.

 

But the defender of direct realism could mirror this reasoning in the following manner:

(1) Realist intuitions motivate a belief in an objective external world composed of three-dimensional objects.

 

(4) Indirect representational realism cannot provide a positive account for justified perceptual beliefs.

 

(5) No matter the difficulties, direct realism is the only apparent contender in line with the realist intuitions of (1) above.

 

The defender of direct realism defends (4) by an appeal to the analysis offered above about the inherent contradictions and tensions in BonJour’s defense of his views.  Thus, (5) follows and provides the impetus to reexamine the details in defense of direct realism.  

 

Steven Porter accurately captures this dialectic.  After summarizing the key problems with BonJour’s views, he writes, “These problems seem to offer insuperable difficulties for representationalism.  But many have come at things the other way around.  Starting with the natural view of direct realism they find defeaters of it, which lead them to the next best thing from the realist point of view—that is, representationalism.”[20]  But this dialectic, as set up by BonJour, should be challenged.  Granting the realist intuitions of (1), which are affirmed by BonJour, and considering the deeply problematic tensions within BonJour’s indirect representational realism, this should motivate a reconsideration of direct realism.  It is beyond the purview of this paper to attempt to this larger project; it has been the more modest project to clear the field of BonJour’s defense of representationalism.[21]

---

     [1] For a series of arguments against DR with potential replies see Pierre Le Morvan’s “Arguments Against Direct Realism and How to Counter Them,” American Philosophical Quarterly 41 (2004), 221-234.

     [2] Laurence BonJour, “Foundationalism and the External World,” in Philosophical Perspectives 13, edited James E. Tomberlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 240.

     [3] Laurence BonJour, “Foundationalism and the External World,” in Philosophical Perspectives 13, edited James E. Tomberlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 244.

     [4] Laurence BonJour, “In Search of Direct Realism,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 69.2 (2004), 350.

     [5] Laurence BonJour, “Foundationalism and the External World,” in Philosophical Perspectives 13, edited James E. Tomberlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 235—emphasis added.

     [6] Laurence BonJour, “Foundationalism and the External World,” in Philosophical Perspectives 13, edited James E. Tomberlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 244.

     [7] Laurence BonJour, “Foundationalism and the External World,” in Philosophical Perspectives 13, edited James E. Tomberlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 244.

     [8] Laurence BonJour, “Can Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?” American Philosophical Quarterly 15.1 (1978), 11.  This formulation is found in BonJour’s “coherentist” stage, but he recognizes the problem in his later “foundationalist” perspective.  He lays out the same dilemma in “Foundationalism and the External World” (page 231) where he states, “It is this dilemma that has always seemed to me to be the most fundamental objection to empirical foundationalism.”  In this latter paper, BonJour is specifically seeking to meet the dilemma’s challenge.

     [9] Laurence BonJour, “Foundationalism and the External World,” in Philosophical Perspectives 13, edited James E. Tomberlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 235.

     [10] Laurence BonJour, “Foundationalism and the External World,” in Philosophical Perspectives 13, edited James E. Tomberlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 235.

     [11] Laurence BonJour, “Foundationalism and the External World,” in Philosophical Perspectives 13, edited James E. Tomberlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 233.

     [12] Steven L. Porter, Restoring the Foundations of Epistemic Justification: A Direct Realist and Conceptualist Theory of Foundationalism(Lexington, 2006), 82.

     [13] Steven L. Porter, Restoring the Foundations of Epistemic Justification: A Direct Realist and Conceptualist Theory of Foundationalism(Lexington, 2006), 83.

     [14] Steven L. Porter, Restoring the Foundations of Epistemic Justification: A Direct Realist and Conceptualist Theory of Foundationalism(Lexington, 2006), 84.

     [15] Steven L. Porter, Restoring the Foundations of Epistemic Justification: A Direct Realist and Conceptualist Theory of Foundationalism(Lexington, 2006), 85-86.

     [16] Steven L. Porter, Restoring the Foundations of Epistemic Justification: A Direct Realist and Conceptualist Theory of Foundationalism(Lexington, 2006), 88.

     [17] Steven L. Porter, Restoring the Foundations of Epistemic Justification: A Direct Realist and Conceptualist Theory of Foundationalism(Lexington, 2006), 88.

     [18] Laurence BonJour, “In Search of Direct Realism,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 69.2 (2004), 351.

     [19] Laurence BonJour, “In Search of Direct Realism,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 69.2 (2004), 351.

     [20] Steven L. Porter, Restoring the Foundations of Epistemic Justification: A Direct Realist and Conceptualist Theory of Foundationalism(Lexington, 2006), 98.

     [21] For attempts at the larger project of explicating and defending direct realism see the following: Pierre Le Morvan, “Arguments Against Direct Realism and How to Counter Them,” American Philosophical Quarterly 41 (2004), 221-234 and Steven L. Porter, Restoring the Foundations of Epistemic Justification: A Direct Realist and Conceptualist Theory of Foundationalism (Lexington, 2006).

Jesus' Use of Reason in Matthew 12.22-29

Matthew 12.22-29: Jesus’ Use of Reason

1.     Setting the scene

a.     There is a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute.

b.     Jesus responds by healing the man “so that he spoke and saw” (v. 22).

c.      The crowds are amazed and begin to draw the explanatory conclusion that Jesus might be the Son of David—the Messiah.[1]

d.     The Pharisees offer another causal explanation—Jesus’ exorcistic power is from Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.

2.     Jesus begins to reason about why their explanatory cause makes no sense.  He points to their (a) inconsistency and (b) arbitrariness.[2]

a.     Inconsistency:  Jesus points to an internal inconsistency in his opponents argument in verses 25-26.  Essentially Jesus argues that if Satan is casting out Satan this creates a divided kingdom.  If Satan is casting out Satan and in the process is drawing people’s minds to think of God’s promises—namely the Davidic Messiah—then is a stupid plan.[3]

b.     Arbitrariness: In verse 27 Jesus points to a reality the Pharisees accepted—exorcisms by their “sons.”  Jesus is asking if their causal explanation of his exorcisms is consistent with the fact of other exorcisms they do accept.  Jesus is thus demonstrating that their causal explanation is arbitrarily applied.[4]

3.       Jesus continues to draw out his reasoning about the situation in verse 28: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” 

a.     This is an example of modus ponens:

                                               i.     If P then Q

                                              ii.     P

                                            iii.     Therefore, Q

b.     In Jesus’ argument:

                                               i.     P = I [Jesus] cast out demons

                                              ii.     Q = the kingdom of God has come upon you

c.      Jesus had defended P in verses 25-27 against the counter-explanatory claims of the Pharisees

4.     The Pharisees can irrationally hold to their inconsistent and arbitrary explanation or they could attempt to take Jesus’ modus ponens argument and turn it into a modus tollens argument.

a.     modus tollens

                                               i.     If P then Q

                                              ii.     ^Q

                                            iii.     Therefore, ^P

b.     They could deny that the kingdom has come (^Q).  Therefore, whatever the explanatory cause of the exorcism it is not the case that the kingdom has come so they reject Jesus’ reasoning.  It is to admit that they do not have an explanation for Jesus’ power but they refuse to give credence to Jesus’ explanation.

5.     Why does Jesus draw the conclusion about the relationship between exorcism by the Spirit and the coming of the kingdom?

a.     Jesus’ words in Matthew 12.29 help us to see the background of Jesus’ reasoning.  Matthew 12.29 states: “Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man?  And then he will plunder his house.”

b.     This language of Matthew 12.29 is an allusion to Isaiah 49.24-25:

^24”Can the prey be taken from the mighty man, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued?”  ²⁵Surely, thus say the Lord, “Even the captives of the mighty man will be taken away, and the prey of the tyrant will be rescued; for I will contend with the one who contends with you, and I will save your sons."

c.      Larger context of Isaiah 49 is about the “Servant.”

                                               i.     Servant is both corporate (Israel—verse 3)

                                              ii.     And an individual—the Servant brings back Israel (Jacob) to God (verse 5-6)

d.     “Servant” language in Isaiah 49 is part of larger Servant imagery in Isaiah that Jesus also appeals to in his teaching.

                                               i.     Isaiah 42.1 “Behold, my Servant, whom I uphold; my chosen one in whom my soul delights.  I have put my Spirit upon him…

1.     Isaiah 42.1-3 is the passage quoted by Jesus in Matthew 12.17-21—the pericope immediately prior to the passage under consideration about Jesus’ exorcisms!

2.     The Servant who has God’s Spirit upon him is linked in Isaiah with the Spirit-anointed One in Isaiah 61.1 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted;…”

                                              ii.     Isaiah 61.1-2

1.     “This individual parallels in the servant figure of Isa. 40-55.  The anointment of the Spirit recalls 42:1…” 

2.     “Thus Beuken (1989) is correct in understanding Isa. 61 as an ‘interpretation’ of Isa. 40-55.”[5]

3.     Isaiah 61.1-2 is quoted by Jesus in Luke 4.18-19

e.     Jesus is utilizing the background material in Isaiah regarding the Spirit-anointed Servant who brings God’s kingdom.[6]

6.     Jesus and the Pharisees hold certain background assumptions in common.  They both formally affirm the Old Testament perspective on God, his covenants, his promises in Isaiah, etc.  Jesus reasons from within these shared assumptions to show the inconsistency and arbitrariness of the Pharisees.  Their explanation does not fit the evidence as situated within their shared background assumptions.

---

     [1] “The question is worded in such a way as to indicate a measure of perplexity, but also to open the door to an interesting possibility.”  Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1992), 314.

     [2] Douglas Groothuis sees Jesus’ answers here in verses 25-27 as an example of Jesus using a reductio ad absurdum form of argumentation.  On Jesus (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth-Thompson Learning, 2003), 34.

     [3] “It is not be presumed that Satan is stupid: the Pharisees were taking up an impossible position.  Theoretically, of course, it might be argued that Satan could allow the expulsion of one demon in order to effect some diabolical purpose, but this would be met by the fact that Jesus kept on expelling demons; he carried on an unrelenting war against all the demonic forces.”  Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1992), 315.

     [4] “The only possible logic behind the Pharisaic position was that a mere human could not overcome a demon.  If Jesus did have such a victory, therefore, it would show that he had aid from a superhuman source, and in their hostility their logic led them to hold that the source could only be Satan.  But they had spoken hurriedly; they had not stopped to reflect that some of their own people claimed to cast out demons.  The Pharisees would have vehemently denied that their sons were in league with the evil one, but they had not realized that such exorcisms said something about Jesus also.  Therefore they will be your judges; your own sons will prove you wrong!  The logic of a Pharisaic denial that their followers cast out demons through the evil one meant that Jesus did not use the powers of evil either.  The sons would be able to testify to the fact that casting out demons was not a work of Satan.  They would ‘judge’ them for ascribing to Satan what they, the exorcists, knew came from God.”  Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1992), 316.

     [5] David W. Pao and Eckhard J. Schnabel, “Luke” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, eds. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2007), 288.

     [6] “In making this unique claim—in the light of the expectation that in the last time God’s Spirit would rest on the Messiah (Isa. 11.2)—Jesus was almost certainly claiming that in his exorcisms it was evident that he was endowed with the eschatological Spirit and therefore an eschatological figure himself.”  Graham H. Twelftree, “The Miracles of Jesus: Marginal or Mainstream?” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 1.1 (January 2003), 119.